June 29, 2006

It was announced recently that billionaire investor Warren Buffet would give some $31 billion of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation already worth some $21 billion thus more than doubling its endowment to around $52 billion, the biggest act of charity of all time. At around the same time it was announced that Bill Gates would transition from Microsoft to devote more time to running his foundation - that is to giving his money away. These are events worthy of more notice than they received. The Gates Foundation is devoting its efforts to curing disease in Africa among the world's poorest peoples and to educational efforts in the US. As the world's largest foundation by far and with the large assets at its disposal, it can bring considerable power to bear on any problem it wishes to tackle.

Isn't it interesting that the world's two richest men have decided to use their wealth in helping the poor thus identifying themselves as liberals. Has any praise been heaped on these men by the President or any members of the Bush Administration. Hardly. Why? Because these two gentlemen are traitors to their class. The idea that anyone would want to use their fortune to help the poor instead of contributing to conservative causes, aggrandizing themselves personally or merely giving lip service to helping the poor, is simply not on the conservative agenda. Why isn't Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell stepping forward to praise these gentlemen as the outstanding Christians they are. Jesus said if you help "the least of these my brethren, it's as if you've helped me." Surely Jesus would approve of these gentlemens' acts and intentions although neither of them is overtly religious. If they have a religion, they certainly don't wear it on their sleeve. Jesus would have approved of that also.

Doesn't it also set an example for the wealthy, and throw down the gauntlet daring others to follow in their footsteps? What about governments who have the economic power to do the same kinds of things the Gates Foundation is doing with private money but don't, preferring to spend money instead on militarism while gutting social programs designed to help the poor?

USA’s aid, in terms of percentage of their GNP has almost always been lower than any other industrialized nation in the world, though paradoxically since 2000, their dollar amount has been the highest. (Only since 2004 have they moved up from last place, by one.)

This is a challenge to all wealthy and powerful persons the world over to do something of a peaceful nature to make the world a better place instead of the stingy, crumbs from the table approach of American conservatism. You'd think they'd be praising Gates and Buffet and using them as examples that private charity not government spending is the way to solve the world's problems. However, Gates and Buffet have now defined themselves as liberals so no self-respecting conservative wants to go near the implications of their acts which represent the economic equivalent of a well-placed bomb.

I have blogged before and also here about the Fortune 500 list of the world's wealthiest. Well, these guys represent numbers 1 and 2. With an endowment greater than the GDPs of many small countries, and high-powered leadership at the helm, the Gates Foundation will be in a position to contribute greatly to the amelioration of the world's ills. It would be interesting to compare their budget to the budget of the Peace Corps, the government agency devoted to the same kind of activities. The budget for the Peace Corps for FY 2006 is a paltry $318.8 million. With a $50 billion endowment yielding a 5% return, the Gates Foundation should have at least $2.5 billion a year to devote to humanitarian causes. This is a few orders of magnitude greater than the budget for the Peace Corps. Over half the budget of the World Health Organization (WHO) comes from private sources such as the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations.

In FY 2005 the US gave approximately $27.5 billion in foreign aid. The total foreign aid proposal of the Bush Administration for FY 2006 amounts to a mere five percent of what Bush is requesting for the Pentagon. As in previous years, Israel and Egypt are the biggest bilateral recipients under the request, accounting for nearly five billion dollars in aid between them. Of the nearly three billion dollars earmarked for Israel, most is for military credits. This militaristic aid will come largely at the expense of humanitarian and development assistance. Much of US foreign aid is self-serving involving credits for military equipment which benefits US Corporations who sell the equipment.

We should be grateful that there are a few decent, intelligent, rich and capable individuals who feel some sense of moral obligation to help those less fortunate than themselves. Most of the moral acts these days are coming not from government officials but from private individuals like the Gates' and Warren Buffet.

June 26, 2006

Make no doubt about it: Al Gore is the star of this film. And he acquits himself very well. Committed to telling the world about global warming since his college days, he continued presenting his itinerant slide show after winning (but not being elected to) the Presidency in 2000. He comes across in this film as a witty, warm, knowledgeable, intelligent human being with a very important message: Global warming is real and we have a very short time to do something about it before something drastic happens to the earth's ecosystem and its inhabitants.

“The director, Davis Guggenheim, uses words, images and Gore’s concise litany of facts to build a film that is fascinating and relentless. In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.”

The atmosphere is a very small, very fragile part of the earth. It is important to remember that earth didn't have an atmosphere in the early years of its existence. Only gradually was one formed by plants and animals that breathed carbon dioxide and generated oxygen. Al Gore's presentation of his slide show draws on some very impressive research and includes some amazing graphics displays that are state of the art. They've seemingly done the impossible by making the presentation of these graphics so razzle-dazzle as to not be boring. In fact the amazing accomplishment of this movie is that it presents what is essentially scientific research in a way as to not be boring.

Al, wisely, intersperses some of his own personal story to break up the ponderousness of the factual presentation. We see him going through security at an airport, driving his car to the family ranch, working on his laptop. As he says, "The debate is over." Reputable scientists are nearly unanimous that global warming is happening and human beings are the cause of it. Greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide mainly) are trapping the sun's rays and heating up the atmosphere, which is causing melting of the polar ice caps, more frequent and violent hurricanes and tornadoes and rising sea levels among other anomalies. Torrential rains are becoming more common as are parched and arid areas.

Data from ice cores from the Antarctic takes the research back 650,000 years so we don't have to rely just on data taken since temperatures started to be recorded a hundred or so years ago. By far the biggest danger is the disintegration of the Greenland and Antarctic ice shelves. If these immense chunks of ice were to become unhinged from their moorings and slide into the sea, all seacoast cities and communities would be obliterated affecting a billion people worldwide.

One cannot help wondering what the world would have been like if Al Gore instead of George W Bush had been elected President in 2000. He is such a decent man; one wonders how the Republicans were able to, if not assassinate his character (which they did to Bill Clinton), assassinate his personality instead. But that is their modus operandi! They'll smear an opponent in any way they can. Instead of the reasonableness which the Democrats offer, the Republicans offer the certainty of a true believer and they appeal to true believers everywhere. God is (according to them) on their side so anything that is done to further their cause is justified. Sound familiar? Their cause includes a continued devotion to oil so they pay scientists to cast doubt on the validity of the global warming scenario.

Gore would have implemented measures to ameliorate the effects of global warming and get the US away from dependence on oil. Bush started a war to secure America's oil supply via access to Iraq's second largest proven oil reserves in the world. The world is the loser. Instead of civilization taking a step forward, it has entered a new Dark Ages. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, has been terminated by the Bush Administration and the American people, at least a majority of them, seem to be in favor of it. After all, if they weren't, in a democracy, they wouldn't have voted for George W Bush and filled Congress with Republicans.

June 22, 2006

While the Senate debates whether or not there should be a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq, you can bet that the planning has already begun for the announcement of a major troop reduction. There are already signs that a troop withdrawal is being planned. Now how dumb can the Democrats be? They should know that the timing will be based on political expediency not the facts on the ground or anything else. Would Karl Rove ever do anything that wasn't calculated to have the biggest positive effect for George W Bush and the Republicans? In much the same way that Richard Nixon prolonged the Vietnam War another four years announcing victory and withdrawal just before he was re-elected to a second term, Rove has probably calculated the announcement of a major troop withdrawal from Iraq to time precisely with the critical November elections.

President Bush will announce that, since the Iraqi government and army is now in a better position to help itself, it is now time to withdraw a major number of troops. Of the 132,000 troops stationed there now, I would guesstimate that he will announce a withdrawal of 40,000 to 50,000 troops. This announcement will probably take place a month before the November 2 elections. Pulling this rabbit out of the hat will guarantee that the Republicans will maintain their majorities in the House and the Senate thus dooming the Democrats to irrelevancy once again. Only John Murtha has realized that this is probably the game plan. Thus Bush and the successful Iraqi War effort will dominate the news leading up to election day. On election day you will see split screens on Fox and CNN with half the screen devoted to the arriving troops, proudly saluting from the bow of a ship while their wives and families wait with open arms, and the other half devoted to the incoming election results. There will be a political spectacle and extravaganza the likes of which have never been seen before with President George W Bush leading the parade. Naturally his approval rating will jump a full 20 points as Republican after Republican gains reelection. The Democrats will be cast as gloom and doom sayers, not having faith in the ultimate victory which George W will assure us is at hand - but not quite at hand as there is still some more hard slogging left to do.

Of course, the Bush Administration never intends to leave Iraq completely, and this is really what the debate should be about. The behemoth military bases being built all over Iraq and the gigantic embassy will require a significant amount of manpower. I would guesstimate on the order of 50,000 men and women. So while Bush will order troop withdrawals, he will say nothing about leaving Iraq completely. No, he intends to stay there on a permanent basis. Regarding the announced withdrawals, of course, he always has the option of retrurning part or all of the troops withdrawn after the election. I can't believe the Democrats are going to let themselves be snookered again! They should be getting out in front of this telling the American people just what Karl Rove and his supporting cast have in mind. A production of colossal proportions that will make Cleopatra and Ben Hur not to mention Gone with the Wind pale in comparison. Political Theater to the Max! TV airwaves will be exclusively devoted to this pageant. Patriotic fervor will be rampant with everyone supporting our returning heroes and by implication the Bush Administration and Republicans up for reelection. No Democrat will dare throw cold water on this parade.

Does anyone doubt that Bush, Cheney, Rove et al have it within their power to pull this off? No, it is a scenario completely under their control. They need a dramatic gesture to keep control of the House and Senate and, with the American people clamoring to bring the troops home, this will be the Mutha of All Dramatic Gestures. Republicans will be wrapping themselves in the American flag, shouting "job well done" to the troops; Fox News and CNN will be interviewing the families of the returning heroes and glory, thanks to George Bush, will reign down on America with her amber waves of grain. The troops and their families will be willing bit players in this drama.

The other dimension of the Rovian timetable is the completion of the megabases and embassy in Iraq since, once they are completed, American forces can withdraw there for permanent residency. They will be there for the long haul. They are the only construction projects in Iraq that are on schedule for completion. Since the completion date for the embassy is June 2007, it will require that a substantial number of US troops remain at least until that date. The completion dates may not coincide with the fall elections, but no worries. When they are finished and suitable for occupancy by our occupation forces, another troop reduction can be announced! Meanwhile, the war is going as planned although this is not the impression given to the media which is obsessed with the nonconsequential random violence. A major goal is to get the American casualty rate down to an acceptable level in the eyes of the American people. I'm sure it's acceptable now in the eyes of the Bush Administration and the military. The American casualty rate will inevitably drop as the Iraqis stand up more troops and take over more responsibilities. As far as American military strategy is concerned, Iraqis blowing up other Iraqis is of little consequence as long as no faction is able to mass troops and to undertake more than random violence. If any faction starts to take over too much territory as in Ramadi and Fallujah, the American military will go in to bust it up thus reducing the insurgency to tactics which have no consequence or larger stategic implications. So from the American point of view (the Bush Administration's not the media's) the war is going well, the insurgents are reduced to relatively ineffective tactics, the bases and embassy are nearing completion, American casualties are going down, the Iraqi Government is in place and the Iraqi Army is standing up.

The next phase is troop reductions and withdrawal into fortified bastions (secure sanctuaries) and dividing up the oil fields as the spoils of war. Once American troops are not being dramatically killed, Iraqi on Iraqi violence will fall off the American radar screen for two reasons. Americans don't really care about Iraqi casualties, and no American news crews will dare to roam Iraq reporting on the situation without military escorts which, of course, will be refused them because it's in the Bush Administration's interests not to have Iraqi violence reported.

Get ready for the Karl Rove directed extravaganza leading up to election day. There will be an orgy of patriotic feelings, people supporting our troops to the hilt as they parade heroically home, saluting from the prow of aircraft carriers as bands play Souza marches. Get ready for red, white and blue bunting, yellow ribbons, Republican politicians wrapping themselves in the American flag, George W Bush standing tall and finally vindicated (as orchestrated by Karl Rove.) No expense will be spared as Americans troop to the polls exhilarated by the split screens on their new high definition plasma TVs at home showing returning troops on one side and election returns on the other. Democrats will be portrayed as hapless weenies who cut and run not daring to think big and live big as Americans should. It's American destiny and American glory and George W Bush is our leader!

June 21, 2006

Claude Monet was one of the few impressionists who actually made pretty good money at his art later in life. During a three week stay in Paris, I spent one day visiting Monet's home in Giverny which along with his gardens and lilly pond is kept in much the same state as he left it when he died in 1926. Monet's famous paintings of his gardens, pond and Japanese bridge which celebrate the beauty of nature don't tell the story that they were first created by the meticulous Monet who then later painted them. So he was a gardener, pond builder and bridge builder in addition to being a painter

From the Gare Saint-Lazare train station it's about a 45 minute trip to Vernon. From here it's about 4 km to Giverny to which you can either walk or take a bus. I took a bus for the trip out, but, once I had the lay of the land, I felt confident to walk back to the train station through the Foret de Vernon. One of my best memories is hiking through the Foret de Vernon, listening to Take 6 on my cassette player on a beautiful French afternnoon.

In 1877 Monet did a series of paintings of the Saint-Lazare train station, and I was fortunate enough to attend an exhibition at the Musee d'Orsay of the paintings of the Saint-Lazare by both Monet and Manet. In those days the trains were steam engine powered and the stations were dirty, sooty places, but fascinating nonetheless. From 1916 to 1926, Monet worked on 12 large canvases called "The Water Lillies." After the Armistice for World War I was signed, Monet donated them to France. These paintings can be viewed at the museum of the Orangerie in Paris which is near the Tuilleries Gardens which is just west of the Louvre.

On the beaches of Normandy, he met fellow artist Eugene Boudin, who became his mentor and taught him to use oil paints. Boudin taught Monet en plein air (outdoor) techniques for painting. Monet was a non-conformist eschewing the techniques of the conventional art establishment at the time. Instead he joined with artists such as Renoir, Bazille and Sisley to create a new approach to art which came to be known as impressionism.

It was at Giverny that he began his well-known series which later made him famous. He painted the series of twenty-five "Haystacks" between 1888 and 1891. In 1892, he exhibited a set of twenty-four Poplars at the Durand-Ruel gallery; from 1892 to 1898, he painted the series of Cathedrals, "Matinées sur la Seine " and then the Japanese Bridge , Wistarias and Water Lilies with their interplay of sky, clouds, grass and flowers.

After 1900 Monet became famous and continued to paint the "controlled nature" of his gardens and lilly pond at Giverny. Monet lived and painted in Argenteuil, Rouen and London among other places.

His first wife, Camille Doncieux, with whom he had two children died in 1879. He later married Alice Hoschede and moved into the Giverny house in 1883 where he lived and painted until his death. In his later years he suffered from cataracts which affected his painting. His sight somewhat recovered after cataract surgery. In 1911 Alice died and in 1914 his son, Jean, died.

At Giverny there is a nice gift shop as well as the house and gardens which you can tour. The town itself is very small. It's a beautiful way to spend a day and get back to the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris by nightfall.

I'm a window cleaner. At least that's my day job. My night job has varied from professional musician to information theorist to social choice theorist to web master to blogger. This is the first of a series of autobiographical posts that I call "Don't Throw Me in the Brier Patch" because most people probably would look at my life as the equivalent of their having been thrown in the brier patch. Like Brer Rabbit, the brier patch suits me just fine. I like my life. I chose it, and I like it.

It wasn't the life chosen for me by my parents or rather the life my parents steered me towards. I was a professional student for 30 years. I'm an alumnus of Andover (where President Bush went to school), Georgia Tech, Stanford and UCSD. I worked in the industrial-military complex for 15 years. It was partly because I couldn't stand the philosophy and working conditions of the military-industrial complex and partly because I couldn't stand the sedentariness of the job that I left and became a window cleaner.

I started my own business with a capital investment of $20., no training, no apprenticeship, no certification, no credentials and no license. As an early adapter of the answering machine, I didn't need a secretary to take phone messages. Later a cell phone made it unnecessary to have a "physical" location in order to do business.

All of a sudden I was my own boss. I didn't have to ask permission to take a day off. I just didn't schedule any appointments for that day. I had my own system of "flexitime," never giving an exact appointment time, only a window. I was independent. I was free. It was how I really wanted to live although it was against everything my parents and the whole educational system stood for. The educational system is in the business of creating docile employees and complacent consumers - basically people who don't think for themselves and have a vested economic stake in going with the flow. People who, unfortunately, are vulnerable to advertising messages both commercial and political. If the educational system truly wanted to benefit its students, it would teach them to be resistant to advertising. As a window cleaner and proprietor of my own business, I had no boss, no union and no "benefits," and I had to do hard, physical work. I loved it. Most Americans wouldn't. That's why I say, "Don't throw me in the brier patch."

I could take holidays whenever I wanted to take them, not when all the lemmings took them on the same day crowding the freeways and beaches. I could take vacations during the "low rate" season, and not when everyone else took them. Just as in the movie, "1000 Clowns," I owned my days, and my nights were free from any daytime job baggage carryover. I didn't have to ask anyone's permission for anything. I worked outside in the sunlight and enjoyed the beautiful days instead of sitting in an office or in an underground, windowless bunker as in my last assignment in the M-I complex at Battery Ashburn on Point Loma, San Diego. That was a job for Naval Electonics Laboratory (NEL) which later changed its name to Naval Electronics Laboratory Center (NELC) which later changed its name to Naval Ocean Systems Command (NOSC) which later changed its name to Naval Research and Development (NRAD). People with nothing better to do kept changing the name to protect the guiIty.

As a self-employed window cleaner, I didn't have to put up with obnoxious co-workers or an obnoxious boss. Once in a while I would come across an obnoxious customer, but, if I didn't like them or they didn't like me, that would be our last encounter. I wouldn't have to not look forward to going to work every day and seeing them again. I could speak my mind and not fear losing my job. Maybe I would lose a particular customer, but so what. I wanted to cultivate a clientele of people that I liked and could get along with, not a clientele of enemies or people who treated me badly or who thought I was worth less than they were. As a result, I could look forward to going to work every day, meeting new and interesting people, doing something that was more physically rewarding than sitting behind a desk and doing something that left my mind free to think, to practice my music (you don't really have to have an instrument in your mouth to do that), or to listen to great literature or great music via my cassette (or later) CD player. When I was finished I had the instantaneous gratification of having the check in my hand, and then I was out of there. No worries. No stress. No problems.

So when my fellow alumnus, President Bush, speaks about all those jobs "Americans don't want to do," I wonder if this makes me unamerican for doing one of them and making good money to boot!

June 15, 2006

We have blogged before about the two entities running San Diego. On the one hand we have the elected Mayor and City Council who are presiding over a virtually bankrupt city which hasn't been able to borrow money in the bond market since 2004 because of a suspended credit rating. On the other hand we have the unelectedCity Centre Development Corporation (CCDC) which has overseen the redevelopment and revitalization of downtown including the building of scores of new condos and office projects, the new ballpark, and new parks and amenities of various sorts.

Why is there such a disparity? Because the CCDC is comprised of a small number of highly paid, highly motivated professionals - architects and urban planners - who have various tools (including eminent domain as a last resort) which enable them to get the job done. On the other hand, the "city" is a vast bureaucracy including a Police Department, Fire Department, Transportation Department, Parks Department, Water and Sewer Department comprised of unionized municipal employees who in conjunction with not fully accountable public officials have placed self-interest and not the public interest first resulting in various scandals such as the current pension debacle in which the Pension Board conspired with city officials to underfund the pension fund.

A case in point is the new main library designed by architect Rob Wellington Quigley and Tucker Sadler. This was a pet project of former mayor Dick Murphy. It was one of Murphy's 10 points when he assumed office in December 2000 with a promising agenda to improve San Diego's civic life. When San Diego "city" finances went into a nosedive, Murphy proposed a creative way to pay for the new library - hit the CCDC up for it. The CCDC is funded by a percentage of the increased taxes due to redevelopment. In other words if a high rise replaces a flophouse, the property taxes go up accordingly. The CCDC gets a percentage of the increase. Consequently, due to the fantastic amount of redevelopment, the CCDC has plenty of money. Luckily, there is a firewall between CCDC and "city" finances.

The city seems to care less about husbanding its financial assets than it does in using them for political purposes. On a small scale the collusion between lobbyists, powerful financial interests and politicians looking to curry favor with campaign contributors mirrors what goes on at the national level with the interests of the average taxpayer not counting for much. On the other hand the CCDC does look out for the interests of the average citizen by being concerned about issues like parks, architectural values and good urban planning. It's impact on the taxpayers is nil except from the rising inflow to city coffers due to the increased value of downtown real estate. As such it represents a salutary effect. No one would argue that, as a high rise represents an increase in value over the flophouse it replaced, the owner of the high rise should not pay property taxes commensurate with its value.

Originally, the new library was estimated to cost $149.5 million, and Murphy originally announced in his State of the City address that he would ask the CCDC to pay two-thirds of the cost for building the library on Park Boulevard at J Street. Murphy asked the CCDC for $100 million to build the library. No money from the San Diego city general fund would be available since the city was broke. In addition $20 million was to come from a state grant and $30 million from private donors. We have a few local billionaires who probably would be glad to contribute. However, the CCDC choked on being hit up for $100 million offering $80 million instead, still a considerable sum of money.

This is an excerpt from an editorial which appeared in the San Diego Union December 7, 2005 entitled "Rescuing the Library":

"It is encouraging that Mayor Jerry Sanders, a hard-nosed realist when it comes to the city's fiscal crisis, recognizes the importance of a new central library and pledges to support it, with one stipulation. That is that no general fund money be used in its construction. The general fund pays for police and fire protection, trash collection, parks and other city services, and it currently is being devoured by escalating pension costs.

Sanders' practical approach is unavoidable, but it imposes an even greater challenge on private individuals to rescue this vital project. Here are the numbers:

A signature building designed by San Diego architect Rob Wellington Quigley, rising nine stories and encompassing nearly 500,000 square-feet overlooking the bay, will cost $185 million, if construction begins next July as planned. That is up from the 2003 estimate of $149.5 million, due largely to a $28.5 million jump in construction costs caused by the delayed start of construction. Time is money. And on a project of this scale, another postponement in the construction schedule would drive the cost significantly higher.

At present, the Centre City Development Corp., the redevelopment agency for downtown, has pledged $80 million in "tax increment" funds toward the library. These are additional revenues generated by new development downtown and they cannot be spent, thank heaven, to bail out the troubled retirement system or on other general fund purposes. On top of CCDC's contribution, the city has a $20 million state grant, which will be forfeited if library construction does not begin soon.

This leaves a gaping hole of $85 million to be filled by private donors – a huge but certainly attainable goal in the country's seventh-largest city. One potential way to ease the demands on philanthropy is for CCDC to boost its contribution to $100 million, which was the amount former mayor Dick Murphy proposed. Given the boom in CCDC revenues, the agency certainly can afford to contribute $100 million.

This still would leave, however, $65 million to be raised from individuals. Needless to say, a relatively small number of San Diegans are potential sources for this kind of money. (The city's first public library was built a century ago with an indispensable $50,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie.) Rarely in San Diego's history has such a crucial project depended on so few. Without their support, this glimmer of civic achievement will be blotted out by the dark clouds of San Diego's financial crisis.

The CCDC to the rescue. While the "city" is embroiled in pension debacles and fiscal crises of various sorts, the CCDC is carrying the ball in order to make San Diego a world class city. What lessons can be drawn from this puzzling conundrum? An agency of the city has more money than the city itself or what we thought of as the city!? And note this: the CCDC's money is based on an increment of the increased taxes due to increased real estate values. Who do you think gets the lion's share of the increased taxes? You guessed it. The broke city itself where the gusher of money coming in goes right down a rat hole. Maybe the CCDC should replace the "city" as the "city of San Diego" for all intents and purposes. It recently floated a $109 million triple A rated bond something the "city" doesn't have a prayer of doing. Fiscal responsibility has not been the "city's" strong suit. Maybe San Diego should outsource it's personnel needs or even privatize them. Could private contractors do a better job of policing, fire fighting, providing water and sewers etc? Why not? Perhaps an agency professionally staffed like the CCDC could oversee the contracting of these functions thus getting the "city" out of the business of managing a huge unionized bureaucracy with assorted personnel problems. Already the Downtown San Diego Partnership has taken over the "Clean and Safe" functions of the city. If we dismantled the bureaucracy and deunionized the city we all might be better off.

Why shouldn't the city be run like a successful corporation? Most corporations are deunionized and debureaucratized these days. They are getting out of the pension and health care business. I believe health care should be provided on the national level to every citizen like it is in most other advanced industrialized countries. I'm for means testing it like it is in the new Massachusetts plan. I'm for means testing social security as well. Why shouldn't rich people, at least, pay their own way. I think unions are passe. "Benefits" should come via the national government or perhaps from state governments. They should be for all not just union members.

The back office work could be outsourced to Bangalore replacing hundreds of overpaid municipal employees by underpaid young Indians eager for work. Why is the CCDC a success? Because it's not in the personnel business. It doesn't have to deal with all kinds of "benefits" like pension plans and health care. This is what is bankrupting the city. I say let the city go bankrupt, and then let something like the CCDC take over as the city. A few highly paid, highly dedicated professionals overseeing a bunch of private contractors who wouldn't hesitate to outsource most of the work.

Pat Flannery calls Nancy Graham, president of the CCDC, San Diego's "unelected mayor." But he misses the point. Ms. Graham was selected based on her merit, not on her ability to attract campaign contributions. Flannery is upset that the CCDC is building fire stations. He doesn't get it. Those amenities are not strictly for private use. They are for the general public like any other park or fire station. He thinks the city is being run by real estate developers. However, there is probably more democratic input from local citizens into the decision making process of the CCDC than there is into the decisions of the politically elected mayor and councilmen and women.

There is also a group called the Centre City Advisory Committee, CCAC, that advises the CCDC. These folks are elected from the various districts of downtown, and, as one so elected and having served a term, I can attest that the real estate developers have to pass muster with the CCAC before any decision is made by the CCDC. The whole process has a large component of democratic input since it is ongoing and not just a periodic election. The CCAC does not have veto power over the CCDC but exerts considerable influence. Every project carried forward by the CCDC is reviewed. In addition the recommendations of the CCDC have to pass muster with the city council before they can be put into effect. Far from being run by a cabal of real estate developers, the CCDC, CCAC and city council working in conjunction have proven that great things can be done using a different model than the municipal employee bureaucracy cum elected politicians model which is currently mired in so much controversy and debt.

June 04, 2006

The sub-title of American Theocracy is "The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century," and it is more or less equally divide among these three somewhat disparate topics although they're all linked in some ways. Kevin Phillips runs down the whole history of religion in the US, and it is a fascinating account. It seems like the more radical religions have always displaced the more mainline, conservative and thoughtful religions. The Southern Baptist Convention, in particular, has taken over not only the whole south but bordering regions as well. These religions are characterized by blind faith and emotional appeal rather than thoughtful analysis. Therefore, the world's problems can be addressed not be intellectual analyses, but by gut feeling and the knowledge that God (not mere humans) always has the situation well in hand and that everything happens for the reason that God intends it to happen as prophesied in the Bible.

This particular kind of religion goes back to the post-civil war era when the notion that "the south will rise again" was kept alive in the churches. Now that the south has risen again as evidenced by the Red State take-over of the political process, southern and, therefore, American hubris exerts itself in the world as if we were God's chosen people. Taking the Bible literally, having dominion over the earth instead of husbanding the earth's resources, looking forward to Armageddon and the Rapture in which all the "true believers" will be taken up to heaven while the rest of us will be left behind to face a sorry mess, these are the articles of faith that America's dominant religion has foisted on America's dominant political party.

George W Bush, as a born-again Christian, is happy to pander to the religious right whether it is promoting a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage (which he knows at the outset won't pass) or ignoring environmentalist warnings about global warming. Since God's divine hand is guiding history, America's leaders need do nothing more than emphasize absolutes, authority and tradition. The fact that most of the rank and file of the religious right are disadvantaged by Republican economic policies does not seem to deter them from voting against their own economic interests as long as they have elected officials that mouth the jargon of Christian conservatism. Since most of them are not sophisticated in the economic sense but are more concerned with Nascar, professional football and shopping at Wal-Mart, they can rest assured in the knowledge that a God fearing Christian in the White House is carrying out policies that represent God's will. Certainly the repeal of Roe vs Wade is one of them.

Regarding oil policy, American reserves are on the decline while Saudi Arabia and Iraq have the world's largest and second largest proven reserves, respectively. While the US is the world's largest consumer of oil, it is becoming increasingly dependent on the middle east for its supply. In a sense OPEC has the US where it wants it: in a stranglehold. It can increase the supply. It can decrease the supply. It can make the price go up. It can make the price go down. That's what makes the invasion of Iraq so critical for US neocon and oil company interests. Iraqi oil freed from the grips of either a Saddam, who wouldn't deal with the US after the 1991 Gulf War, or an OPEC would, hopefully, represent a free market controlled by western oil companies. Well, it hasn't worked out that way so far, but that's still the ultimate goal.

The other factor driving up the price of oil is that China, developing at a rapid pace, is trading its bicycles for automobiles. China is developing a voracious apppetite for oil and other natural resources and is competing with the US for the limited supplies available. Meanwhile, such countries as Iran and Venezuela are nationalizing their oil assets joining Saudi Arabia, Mexico and others and leaving the major western oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron and British Petroleum in the lurch. The net result is that the US is increasingly dependent on Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other OPEC countries. The one ace in the hole that the US currently possesses is that, by virtue of a secret agreement with Saudi Arabia, oil must be purchased in dollars which at the present date, at least, is the world's reserve currrency. What this means is that other countries wishing to purchase oil from OPEC must keep a reserve of dollars with which to buy it. It also means that OPEC countries accumulate dollars from their sales to the US and other nations which must then be funneled back to the US by buying up US debt such as Treasury bonds or US assets such as port management companies that were to be sold to Dubai Ports until there was a huge outcry against it.

So we are dependent on the very countries where terrorism is spawned (Saudi Arabia is officially a Wahhabist Muslim country) both for our oil supply and for buying up our debt. Is it any wonder then that President Bush threatened to veto any legislation that would nix the Dubai Ports deal? As late as the 1980s, the US was a creditor nation. Since then it has run up debts to international creditors of over $4 trillion making the US the world's largest debtor nation. As long as oil continues to be priced in dollars this is not that great a concern. But, if OPEC should decide to price oil in euros as well as dollars, then nations need not keep a large dollar reserve and might increasingly make their purchases in euros or other currencies if OPEC should decide to sell oil in a number of different currencies. The petro-dollars - the accumulation of dollars by oil producing nations - would diminish and the US would have to raise interest rates, devalue the dollar or give in to inflationary pressures or all three in order to finagle its way out of a fiscal donnybrook. The spectre of such possibilities make controlling Iraqi oil as a conterweight to OPEC and China, which is cutting deals all over the world with countries basically hostile to the US, seem like a rational alternative to giving up the American way of life and debt.

Phillips' third major point is about the financialization of the US. As he says: "...Moving money around has surpassed making things as a share of the US gross domestic product." Financial services are on the rise; manufacturing is on the decline. The stock market bubble of 2000 has been replaced, by means of reducing interest rates to borrowers and "creative" financial instruments such as Adjustable Rate Loans (ARMs) and interest only mortgages, by a real estate bubble which is already on the verge of breaking. What bubble will be next to rescue the US economy? All kinds of fancy stock market derivatives and hedge funds have made the stock market subject to a bubble burst at any time, and guess who will be hurt? The 401k'ers who are hoping for a pension some day. The hedge fund guys can shift their money very quickly, and the derivatives accelerate the rises and falls much faster than an unsophisticated investor can react.

The US savings rate is now negative with consumers carrying a huge load of credit card and mortgage debt. Americans are encouraged to overconsume. Something like half of Americans are overweight and a third are obese. If Paul Volcker said it was his job as Fed chairman to "take the punch bowl away just as the party got started," now the policy seems to be to add more punch to the bowl and bring out the pork rinds and buffalo wings! Consequently, in addition to stock market and real estate bubbles, there is a credit bubble which could burst at any time. America has become a rentier culture. That is it makes more money from unearned income - capital gains on stocks, real estate, dividends and rents - than it does from manufacturing. Deindustrialization and postindustrialism have replaced manufacturing and hard work as the engine that drives the economy. The hard work, "the jobs Americans don't want to do," is done by illegal immigrants. The US trade deficit, because of imports of cheap manufactured goods from China and oil from the middle east, is in the neighborhood of $600. billion annually. Germany, Japan and Switzerland, by contrast, enjoyed huge surpluses in trade in manufactured goods and large ones in their current accounts in 2003 and 2004 all the while maintaining high workforce wages and benefits.

The Republican policy of profligate spending while lowering taxes, which started with Ronald Reagan who quintupled the National Debt and continues to the present day with George W Bush, is hastening the day when the US, already the world's largest debtor nation, will no longer be able to borrow and spend on such favorable terms as it currently enjoys. When the chickens come home to roost, and the world decides the euro or an Asian currency is a more favorable reserve than the dollar, the US will not only be the world's greatest debtor but the world's largest indentured servant.